FIGS. 1 and 2 of the drawing illustrate a prior art tape dispenser 10 adapted to be hand held and to be used to dispense pressure sensitive adhesive coated tape 12 having a stretchable backing from a roll 14 of such tape in the dispenser 10. The dispenser 10 includes a housing 18 comprising a base portion 20 including walls defining a cavity 22, a hub 24 transverse of the cavity 22 about which hub 24 the roll 14 of tape 12 is rotatably mounted, and a land area 26 spaced from the hub 24 against which tape 12 from the roll 14 may be releasably adhered. The walls defining the land area 26 define a slot 28 extending transverse of the land area 26 and providing a portion of the land area 26 on both sides of the slot 28. The dispenser 10 also includes a cover portion 30 having a row of triangular teeth 32 adapted to move into the slot 28 to cut through transversely dispersed portions of the tape 12 adhered on the land area 26, and means in the form of a hinge 34 for mounting the cover portion 30 on the base portion 20 for relative pivotal motion between an open position (FIG. 2) with the teeth 32 spaced from the slot 28 and a closed position (FIG. 1) with the teeth 32 disposed within the slot 28.
The tape 12 with its stretchable backing can be dispensed from this dispenser by moving the cover portion 30 to its open position, manually grasping the end of the tape 12 which is adhered to the portion of the land area 26 closest to the roll 14, and pulling the tape 12 away from the land area 26 and off of the roll 14. When a desired length of the tape 12 has thus been pulled off of the roll 14, the portion of the tape 12 to be severed is adhered to the land area 26 over the slot 28 and the cover portion 30 is moved to its closed position. This causes the teeth 32 to pierce the tape 12 in a plurality of aligned transversely disposed places so that the portion of the tape 12 extending past the teeth 32 can easily manually be torn between the teeth 32 from the tape remaining in the dispenser 10 and simultaneously pulled off of the portion of the land area 26 farthest from the roll 14.
While this dispenser 10 effectively cuts tapes with stretchable backings that cannot easily be cut by pulling it across a serrated cutting edge such as is done on more conventional dispensers, dispensing tape from the dispenser 10 is slow because its use requires a large number of manual manipulations.